Geography is more important than life history in the recent diversification of the tiger salamander complex.

ABSTRACT: The North American tiger salamander species complex, including its best-known species, the Mexican axolotl, has long been a source of biological fascination. The complex exhibits a wide range of variation in developmental life history strategies, including populations and individuals that undergo metamorphosis; those able to forego metamorphosis and retain a larval, aquatic lifestyle (i.e., paedomorphosis); and those that do both. The evolution of a paedomorphic life history state is thought to lead to increased population genetic differentiation and ultimately reproductive isolation and speciation, but the degree to which it has shaped population- and species-level divergence is poorly understood. Using a large multilocus dataset from hundreds of samples across North America, we identifie

SUBMITTER: Everson KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8092605 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature